Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary earns €6,575 a day

Ryanair’s new cuddly image is paying off handsomely for its outspoken boss Michael O’Leary who last year enjoyed a bumper 33% jump in pay toearn more than €6,575 each day.

Mr O’Leary secured the 33% increase in overall pay to €2.4m after securing a 9% rise in bonus payments to €855,000 and receiving share-based compensation of €500,000.

The colourful 54-year-old chief executive secured the overall pay increase in the 12 months to March 31 this year as he oversaw record revenues at the airline topping €5.6bn for the first time.

During the same period, pre-tax profits soared by a record 66% to €982m.

According to the airline’s 2015 annual report published yesterday, MrO’Leary secured the increase in pay through an annual gross salary of €985,091 and topped it up with a bonus of €855,000 along with the share-based compensation of €500,000.

The bonus last year compared to a bonus of €783,000 in fiscal 2014.

However, Mr O’Leary’s pay is dwarfed by the value of his 51.38 million shares in the airline representing 3.7% of the overall shareholding.

Mr O’Leary’s share in the airline has almost doubled in value in one year, going from €355m this time last year to €619m today based on a market capitalisation of the airline of €16.73bn.

Last October, O’Leary signed a five-year deal that keeps him at Ryanairuntil September 2019 and this replaces the rolling 12-month contract arrangement that was in place since Ryanair floated in 1997.

The deal granted Mr O’Leary 5 million stock options worth €41.7m and are exercisable between September 2019 and November 2022 and can only be realised if exceptional targets are achieved.

Another 36 senior managers at Ryanair, including seven current executive officers and ten non-executive board members, were granted 10 million share options and are exercisable between June 2019 and July 2022 if targets are met.The remaining directors and executive officers at the airline have a 0.7% shareholding in the airline with a value of €117m with chairman David

Bonderman holding the vast majority of this at €95m, owning 0.57% of shares.The aggregate pay for Ryanair’s ten non-executive directors and eight executive officers totalled €7.4m in fiscal 2015 compared to €7.9m in 2013/14.

Former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy and former secretary general at the Department of Transport Julie O’Neill both serve on the Ryanairboard and each received €50,000 last year.

VP for PayPal Global Operations Europe Middle East and Africa, Louise Phelan is also a board member and received €50,000.

Mr McCreevy - who already receives a lucrative Ministerial pension - was one of eight non-executive board directors to each receive 30,000 share options last year worth é187,500 and are exercisable between June 2019 and July 2022.

The accounts show that Ireland is a very important income generator forRyanair where it generated €560.7m in revenues last year — an increase of €28.3m on the €532.4m in 2014. The airline’s business in Ireland has gone up by 44% from €387m to €560.7m in three years.

The Irish revenues last year compares to €1.55bn in the UK and €3.5bn in other European countries.

The numbers employed by the airline last year totalled 9,393, made up of 5,716 in cabin crew, 2,804 pilots and the remaining 873 made up of ground operations, maintenance, management and administrative staff.

The annual report shows that 38% of an average cabin crew member’s pay relates to productivity-based incentive payment, with 32% of an average pilot’s pay based on productivity-based incentives.